“I will not be silent!” I huffed, ready to climb back on the high horse he’d shouted me off of, but Fallan wasn’t about to give me the chance to remount.
“You will be silent,” he growled, looking down at me as he rested his left hand on his sword hilt. “You will also obey me, for I mean to see you safely to your destination in the most effective manner. We now go to the tent which has been erected to protect your sensibilities. Should you attempt to disobey me, your sensibilities will be sorely bruised. Leave that coach, you wenches, and follow us quickly.”
He took my arm then, and began leading me toward the vair at the front of the coach at a pace faster than I could manage without half running. At that point I could see the medium-sized green tent that had been put up among the trees, a tent that blended into the greens and browns all around us. Fallan’s men were all very busy away from the tent they’d put up, but it wasn’t hard to tell they were watching closely to see what would happen. I was more than curious myself about what was going on, but sputtering indignantly was what the role called for right then, and I was stuck with it. I squeaked in outrage as I was hustled firmly toward that green tent, and couldn’t even enjoy the faint breeze that tickled its way through the trees.
It would have been dark inside the tent without the small lamp that hung on the far wall. Fallan pulled me inside and released me with a small push, then turned to watch the four peasant girls hurry in behind him. Bellna was storming back and forth inside my head, half furiously injured dignity, half flashes of romantic fantasizing; one minute she wanted to see Fallan executed by her father’s soldiers, the next she wanted Fallan to throw the peasant girls out, tear her clothes off, and make violent love to her. I shook my head hard, trying to push away the ringing in my ears and the faint flashes of golden haze in front of my eyes, but didn’t get anywhere until I turned to see Fallan right behind me. He’d pulled closed the tent flap behind the last of the girls, and all five of them were staring at me. Bellna froze in mid-tantrum, suddenly convinced that something horribly final was about to happen, causing me to take an involuntary step back from the big mercenary.
“You need have no fear, Princess,” Fallan said at once, his deep voice unusually gentle and reassuring. He stayed right where he was, his thumbs hooked into his swordbelt, his eyes on me with more concern than I would have expected.
“A princess feels no fear,” I answered, the quaver in my voice all Bellna’s doing. “Murder me if you will, yet know that my father shall avenge me. And I shall die as a princess should, with head held high.”
I flinched inwardly as I raised my chin to match the words forced on me by the Bellna presence, but I wasn’t the only one to consider my speech of bravery more ridiculous than dramatic. The four peasant girls snickered among themselves and Fallan closed his eyes with a deep sigh, both reactions startling Bellna enough to let me grab a corner of control again. Bellna’s fear and my own suspicions had let the presence in my mind take the reins for a while, but no more than a short struggle got them back for me. I thought about wiping my damp forehead on the back of my sleeve, then rejected the idea. It wasn’t something Bellna would do, and it was too close in the tent for anyone to wonder why I might be sweating.
“There is to be no murder, girl,” Fallan said with thick patience, speaking slowly and clearly. “I have brought you within this tent so that you might give up your clothing with the privacy due your station.”
“Give up my clothing?” I echoed as I stared at him, every bit as confused and dumbfounded as my mind-guest. “For what reason am I to give up my clothing?”
“For the reason of your safety,” Fallan answered, still heavy-voiced with patience. “The enemies of your father must be expected to know that you travel now to your nuptials, and must also be expected to attempt some manner of interference. Should they descend upon us, there will be no easy victim for their blade, shall we say, no proper victim. The princess will not stand in her own shadow.”
He ignored the way I was staring at him, totally speechless, and turned to gesture at the redhead. She left the others and approached him, and they both met my stare.
“This wench has been sold by her father into slavery,” Fallan explained, putting one big hand on the shoulder of the girl who now stood in front of him. “The Lord Grigon purchased her before she might be given over to the training of a slave, and she has been given this vow: should she comport herself in so adequate a manner that the enemies of the Prince believe her to be you, and should she survive whatever attempts are made against her, she will be given her freedom once more, and adequate gold to assure her retention of that freedom. You must now take her clothing as she takes yours, and quickly, so that the journey might continue. I will, of course, await you without the tent.”
So that was why the girl had hovered around me in the inn! To learn the way a princess behaved in public! I was still staring at Fallan in disbelief as I tried to figure out where Grigon fit into all of that, but the big mercenary began turning away before even the faintest hint came through. I still didn’t understand what they were all up to, but one point I was crystal clear on: Fallan was trying to replace a decoy with a decoy!
“Hold, Captain!” I said, stopping him before he could head for the tent flap, not about to stand still for that nonsense. “My clothing will remain in its proper place with me!”
Fallan turned back to me impatiently, but this time the jump was mine.
“Do you think me craven enough to set another to die in my place?” I demanded, making no effort to keep the outrage from my voice. “My father is a Prince who will never hide fearfully from his enemies; his daughter may do no less.”
There was no way I was going to let that little girl be set up for the slaughter, no matter how eager they’d made her to give it a shot.
Her eyes were wide and pleasing as she looked at me, begging me to let her take her chances, but she didn’t know what she was asking.
Even I had no guarantees about surviving, and if she had even half the training I did, I’d eat that tent. Without salt.
“Do you think my company so incompetent that her death is sure to be?” Fallan demanded in turn, but gently. “Attackers, should they come, will find no easy access to her, for that you have my word. It is our Intention that she shall survives shall you. Remove the clothing.”
“Never,” I answered in as final a way as possible, meeting his eyes to let him know I meant it. Under other circumstances the idea of hanging on doggedly to clothes I would have loved to be rid of would have been funny; under those circumstances, funny didn’t enter into it.
“Then there is nothing for it save that I do the thing for you,”
Fallan said, with the same finality. “Should this be other than that which you wish, your own efforts must be made upon the moment.”
Slowly he began to close the four or five steps between us, the calm expression in his eyes saying he sympathized with my stand but had no intentions of letting me keep to it. I felt a flash of burning hot resentment behind my eyes, the sort that comes from someone who isn’t used to not getting her own way, and quickly wiped away the annoyance I was feeling. If my reactions merged with Bellna’s I would be the loser, and if I was stupid enough to forget that, I deserved whatever got. I didn’t like having Fallan telling me what to do, but there was more freedom of option in that situation than in having Bellna take over. Fallan was two steps closer and just beginning to reach a hand out when the grip of my control over myself stopped slipping enough for me to raise the bottom of my skirts and try to make a break for it.
Fallan stood between me and the tent flap, but there was enough room in the dim tent for a lot of dodging and fancy footwork. I ran three full steps to the left then dodged right, avoiding Fallan’s grab by a wish and the rustle of skirts. The mercenary cursed in a low voice at the miss, but I was already past him and on the way to the tent flap.
The four peasant girls looked and gasped and drew back from the chase but, unfortunately for me, in the wrong direction. They clumped up in front of the flap I needed to get out of the tent, and Fallan was too close behind me to let me take the time I needed to plow through the girls. I moved to my left again and darted away, and again Fallan cursed when his hand closed on empty air. He was faster than a man his size had the right to be, and Bellna was silent and shocked inside my head. She’d expected to be able to get away from him easily, and now that she-I-hadn’t, she was starting to get worried.
I led Fallan around the tent, avoiding half of his grabs by sheer luck, trying to work my way back toward the tent flap, but this time from the right. From that direction, along the front wall, the four girls ought to scatter to the left, away from the flap, giving me clear running room. Fallan tried cornering me against the side wall we were near, watched carefully as I bobbed back and forth in front of him, saw the feint I made to my right, then lunged to my left, where he thought I was going. To his disgust I continued on to my right, turning the feint into real motion, and blasted at top speed right toward the flap. I was so covered with sweat that it rolled down my forehead to burn my eyes, but I couldn’t let that stop me.
Once I was outside I would lose Fallan and his friends fast, backtrack to the inn we’d stopped at, then burst hysterically in, telling everyone that my escort had tried to assassinate me. That would keep Fallan away if he managed to follow, and also spread the word with the departing. travelers as to where the Princess Bellna could be found. If Clero’s men didn’t show up after that, I would throw in the towel.
The four girls squeaked again, and began scattering like a flock of ducks in hunting season. I took a chance and swiped at my eyes with the back of my sleeve, trying to clear my vision, and because of that didn’t see the slim leg stretched out directly in my path. I did notice it, though, as soon as I tripped over it, tried to recover, and didn’t quite make it. The grassy ground the tent had been pitched over came up to knock the wind out of me, but as soon as I could I started to roll, silly enough to think I still had a chance. I’d forgotten about those stupid skirts again, and Fallan was on me before I could fight them out of my way.
“No, no, you will not again take to your heels,” Fallan panted as I struggled to avoid his reaching hands and scramble to my feet.
“Timely assistance has brought you down, and I will see that you remain so.”
As his hands closed on my wrists I felt Bellna’s panic, and an instant later my own panic joined hers. She was flowing toward my store of unarmed aggressive techniques, determined to use them on Fallan the way I’d used one of them on Valdon! If that didn’t send every-thing sky high nothing would, and instead of having just Fallan to struggle with, I found myself in a double fight. Fallan forced my arms away from between us and pinned my body with his, drawing a scream of rage from Bellna and an increase in her struggles. I say her struggles because I’d lost that much control, finding myself dragged along as most of my power of denial covered the one file of information I couldn’t afford to let Bellna have. My body writhed and twisted on the ground, my feet kicking the way my mind kicked, and then the Lord of Luck came to my rescue again. Bellna’s struggles had brought Fallan’s arm close to my face, and by timing the effort I was able to make my teeth close on that arm. Fallan bellowed and pulled away as Bellna froze again in fear, and then I was all alone and hack in control-just in time for Fallan’s open-handed slap. My ears rang from that slap and my cheek flamed hotter than the stifling air of the tent, but at least those parts were mine again. I saw Fallan raise his arm for another slap and cringed back in true Bellna style, but that seemed to make the mercenary change his mind.
“There has been more than enough of this foolishness,” he growled, lowering his arm without swinging at me a second time. “Remove her from this clothing at once.”
He pulled me into a sitting position, locked one fist in my hair, then moved as far to my left as he could, to be out of the way of the three dark-haired girls. The three girls had come on the run at his growl, but the fourth, the redhead, just stood to one side and watched me. Her young, pretty face showed no signs of triumph or smug satisfaction, but her light eyes were filled with trembling determination. She was the one who had tripped me, of course, and all for the privilege of being set up as a target. I suddenly realized how much freedom meant to her, and looked away in resignation. To prefer death to lifelong slavery was a philosophy I could identify with, even if it did make my job that much harder.
The three girls near me started unlacing my boots, their heads down to cover their amusement at my discomfort. Having your boots unlaced is no big thing, but that wasn’t the way Bellna looked at it. She knew that after the boots the rest of my things would be taken, and was also overly aware of Fallen beside me, his big hand tight in my hair. She and I would be stripped naked in front of Fallan, and although I couldn’t have cared less, Bellna was still young enough and innocent enough to feel the hot-glowing flash of embarrassment. I didn’t need a mirror to know I was blushing like a failure light on a pilot’s board, and to say I was uncomfortable would be the understatement of the week. I had control and I would keep it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t paying the price.
Both of my boots were pulled off at just about the same time, and then the girls came away from my feet to tackle the light blue dress.
Trying to push them away accomplished no more than making two of the girls each take one of my arms, leaving the third free to work on the dress. I struggled ineffectively as it was opened and then pulled off first my arms and then down past my legs, and couldn’t help struggling even harder when the underdress was lifted up. That couldn’t be slipped off around my feet, and the girls needed Fallan’s help to get it free. His arm around my waist held me relatively still while my arms windmilled and my hands tried to hang onto the underdress, but the three girls pulled it off and tossed it away out of my reach.